My heart is hurting today. I have friends facing health issues for themselves or their children. I have friends facing divorce. I have friends who are feeling bombarded and alone. So, today, I am singing this song for each and every one of them.
Will you join me?
So I kind of missed blogging last week. Completely. Monday got away from me. Wednesday I just didn’t have time to flesh out what was on my mind. And Friday I was with a friend at the hospital all day.
And here it is Monday again. November is upon us. Daylight Savings Time has ended.
How is it that this happens so fast?
Last November, I encouraged you in this post to practice Thanksgiving. I practiced it by posting daily on Facebook what I was thankful for each day.
This year, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make sure that my whole family was practicing being grateful. So we created the “Wall of Thanks.”
Okay. So it’s not really a wall. It’s my bedroom door. But it works. Each day in November, Mike, the kids and I are writing something that we are thankful for on a post-it note and adding it to the wall. We even got our small group involved last night and they added their own post-it notes. It’s looking so colorful and fun, and I am thoroughly enjoying reading what my family comes up with each day – from sweet to funny (family to bathrooms). The kids are enjoying it so much, they are doing it first thing in the morning when they wake up!
So, once again, I encourage you to find a way to be grateful every day of November. You’ll be amazed at how much it changes your outlook!
The last few days I have been feeling overwhelmed by the needs of the people around me and trying to figure out how I can help them. I have one friend who is in a specialty clinic for some health problems that have been plaguing her for months. I have another friend whose family just seems to continually be bombarded with major health issues and a new one has arisen. A third friend is struggling with some significant heart and mind issues. And then in staff meeting yesterday we had a long list of needs that we prayed over on behalf of our congregation. Sometimes it can get heavy when faced with so many issues, and then to top it all off, sometimes you don’t even know how to help or to pray.
As I thought about all this today, I was reminded of this scripture, and I love the way The Message phrases it:
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. — Romans 8:26-28 (The Message)
Good news! If we don’t know how else to help, prayer always helps! And, we don’t have to know what to pray – the Spirit knows!
Not that this gets me “off the hook” for doing something else tangible for any of these people, but when there is nothing else I can do, I can always pray.
So that is what I intend to keep doing.
How about you? Does prayer play an important part in caring for those around you? How does that look for you?
I love Garfield. Don’t know why, but I always have. Daily, I get the Garfield cartoon sent to my e-mail and yesterday’s made me laugh. Out loud. Because I swear, instead of Jon in the picture, it could have been Mike.
It’s a perfect example of just when you start to realize how thankful you are for the next thing in your life, something happens and then you feel overwhelmed by the same thing.
So, on this Monday morning of a week that will likely bring many challenges to your life, your schedule, your heart, and your mind, try to focus for a while on what you are thankful for, and why. That way, when you begin to feel overwhelmed, you can remind yourself why you are thankful!
I read this in my devotional book this week:
When the Master invited the Governor to practice meditation and the Governor said he was too busy, this is the reply he got: “You put me in mind of a man walking blindfolded into the jungle–and being too busy to take the blindfold off.”
When the Governor pleaded lack of time, the Master said, “It is a mistake to think that meditation cannot be practiced for lack of time. The real reason is agitation of the mind.” –From Taking Flight by Anthony deMello
And then the next night, I read this:
How often people today cry out in exasperation or despair, “I just don’t have enough time!” There is so much to do: earn a living, fulfill a vocation, nurture relationships, care for dependents, exercise, clean the house. Moreover, we hope to maintain sanity while doing all this, and to keep growing as faithful and loving people at the same time. We are finite, and the demands seem too great, the time too short.
Puritan Sabbath keepers agreed that “good Sabbaths make good Christians.” They meant that regular, disciplined attention to the spiritual life was the foundation of faithfulness. Another dimension of the saying opens up if we imagine a worshiping community helping one another step off the treadmill of work-and-spend and into the circle of glad gratitude for the gifts of God. Taken this way, good Sabbaths make good Christians by regularly reminding us of God’s creative, liberating, and redeeming presence, not only in words but also through a practice we do together in response to that presence. –From “Keeping Sabbath by Dorothy C. Bass in Practicing Our Faith
How many times in the last week have you said, “I’m just too busy to get to that,” or “I don’t have time to do this?” Can you even count the number? And how often do you say, “I just don’t have time to pray,” or “I can’t figure out how to work devotional time into my schedule?”
We live in a culture of busy-ness. Life seems to be out of our control because there is something going on all the time and we can’t (don’t want to) miss anything. And what suffers when life gets crazy busy? Our quiet time. Our centering time. Our sabbath time. We just keep filling the schedule until there is no time left to refresh and renew ourselves with the help of Christ.
There was a time when I said I just couldn’t find any time that worked to spend time reading my Bible and praying. Then one night, I climbed in bed and picked up the novel I was reading and it hit me. I was choosing to lay in my bed and read a novel. I had time to do that. Or rather, I was making time to do that. Why wasn’t I making time to spend with the Lord? So I started. I put my Bible on top of my book and before I could read my book, I made myself read my Bible. And then I added a devotional book. And then I added writing in a journal. And now, I can’t imagine going to sleep without that time. I do it faithfully every day. Even when it is late.
You hear people say all the time about how important this time is, and I agree, but until I read Monday’s devotional, I never quite had the right words for why it is important. Now I do.
When the Master invited the Governor to practice meditation and the Governor said he was too busy, this is the reply he got: “You put me in mind of a man walking blindfolded into the jungle–and being too busy to take the blindfold off.”
Every day, we are walking into a jungle, crazy schedules, family dynamics, work issues, and so much more, and when we are too busy to stop and re-center our lives around Christ and who we are in Him, we are walking into it blindfolded. We can’t see our purpose. We can’t see how God is at work. We can’t see how what we are a part of fits into a bigger picture than just getting through the day. And we are purposely not taking that blindfold off because it would take too much time.
I don’t want to spend my time in the jungle blindfolded. How about you?
This summer and fall have been CRAZY. And yes, I mean that in an all-caps kind of way. We haven’t had much down time at all, which really means we haven’t had much family time at all. Yes, I got to spend every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday evening and Saturday all day with Anne because of cheer leading, but that isn’t what I would call quality mother/daughter time, unless you are counting all 30+ of the “daughters” I was hanging out with. 🙂
Friday night and Saturday were the first in months with no commitments whatsoever. And it was lovely. And boring. And just what I needed.
Friday night we ordered pizza and started a card game of Hand and Foot with the kids. Saturday we finished it. We had a ball. I can’t remember the last time we sat down to play a game together.
For a long time we had a weekly family game night, but in the chaos of life we lost it. And until we sat down to play Friday night, I am not sure any of us realized just how much we had missed it.
So Saturday we all agreed and declared the return of our weekly Family Game Night every Monday. It’s back on.
And my favorite part? I got a text from Anne as I was on my way home Sunday evening from a staff outing. It said, “When u get home can we play 1 hand of hand and foot?”
Needless to say, we did, just to get a jump-start on this evening’s game.
We won’t talk about how Friday and Saturday’s game ended. But last night, Anne and I set ourselves up nicely as we look forward to finishing the game tonight. 🙂
If you don’t have specific time set aside to have fun with your family on a regular basis. Do it. Set it up. You won’t be sorry.
If you do a regular family fun night, what is it?
Sunday I started teaching a new series in Kids Church. It is called Faith Case: Armor of God. It is a great set of lessons about what it means to operate with the help of the Holy Spirit and what it looks like to put on the full armor of God. The DVD-based series follows a girl named Regina into a new school where she will need to use her armor to fend off the attacks of The Spoiler.
One of the things that the kids will learn over the 10-week period is Ephesians 6:10-18:
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
Now, I don’t know about you, but memorization is hard for me. And if I am asking kids to memorize these nine verses, I need to memorize them, too. Give me a script for a play that has back and forth lines or lyrics to a song and I can memorize them, but for some reason (because I don’t have to? because I am not motivated to?) memorizing scripture is much harder for me. I know it is important. After all, one of the right pieces of armor is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Jesus Himself even modeled that for us as he fought off temptation by quoting scripture to Satan (Matthew 4).
I want to know more scripture. I want to be more like Christ. And to be more like Christ, I need to have more of His Word deep in my heart. So I’m going to work on it, beginning with these nine verses and then going from there.
And I am challenging you to do the same. Are you up for it?
Proverbs 16:24
Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
Two people blessed me yesterday simply with the power of their gracious words. In the midst of my crazy busy life, at home and at work, when sometimes I get overwhelmed with the gravity of the negative, these two women spoke words that were truly sweet to my soul and healing to my bones (and heart, and spirit).
Never forget the power of your words to bring healing to others. Never forget that a simple thank you (be specific), goes a long way to bringing joy to another person’s life. Never forget that your words have the power to help and heal or to hurt and tear down. It is you that makes the choice to speak words of hope, health, joy, grace and gratitude.
It doesn’t have to be much: a phone call, text or Facebook message, e-mail, or face-to-face as you pass in the hall will all do the trick.
Who will you bless with your gracious words today?
How did it get to be the first of October already? For that matter, how did it get to be the last quarter of 2012?
Jr. Comets cheer leading/football season is almost over. Only two more practices and one more game with my girls.
I am wearing a sweater today as the high temp is 66. What a difference from a month ago when we were still in the 90’s.
I watched my Jr. High daughter march in her first parade a week ago, and play with the GHS band at the football game Friday night.
Every day for the last (6 months?) week, my son has reminded me that he turns nine this Thursday and has his first sleepover birthday party on Friday.
Most of the time, life is so busy there is no time to notice how fast the time is going. But sometimes, it just hits me that in spite of (because of?) the busyness of life, time keeps moving. Faster and faster.
Never is this more evident than as our children’s birthdays approach. Wasn’t it just last month that I was caring for this 10 pound 1 ounce, 23 1/2 inch long baby (or toddler as my husband said I gave birth to)? Wasn’t it just last week that this rough-and-tumble toddler got stitches in his eyelid, bit through his tongue and got stitches in the top of his head in a three-month period of time? Wasn’t it just yesterday that we gave up teaching him how to ride a bike and he decided to get on it and ride away? When did his legs get so long that they hang off my lap? When did he get so strong?
I am blessed beyond words to be the mother of this little boy. I have learned much, including how to be more off-the-cuff and spur-of-the-moment, how to parent a less-compliant child whose heart is harder to pierce during times of discipline, how to look the other way when the daredevil in him kicks in, how to play light sabres, football and baseball, and more about Star Wars than I ever deemed possible.
So, as we approach 9 years with this not-so-little boy, I continue to look for those pockets of time to enjoy him now, like this morning as I woke him up for school singing to him, and the nights that he tucks me in and I get good snuggles, and the times he and I get an evening to ourselves, because time keeps moving and he keeps growing and it won’t be long and he will be moving on to start a life of his own. And I want to make sure that both he and I have great memories to look back on and a great relationship to build on in the years to come.
Happy Birthday, Ty! You are definitely my favorite little boy, ever!
Last night I watched as Anne was working to perfect her standing back handspring on the tumble track during her tumbling class. She has been working on this for a long time and watching it come was fun. As I have been watching her over the last couple of months, I just kept thinking that she needed to have confidence in her ability to do it before she was willing to try. It’s a scary trick. In a walkover or a limber, you bend over and put your hands on the ground before you bring your legs over your head. But in a handspring, your feet leave the ground before your hands hit the ground to help propel your feet around.
But as I watched last night, I realized there is another part to it as well. She had to trust her teacher to let her know when it was okay to try it on her own. Hannah was right there, spotting Anne as she flipped, right up until the time that Hannah felt Anne could do it on her own. When that time came, Anne was ready, but not until Hannah told her she was ready.
As I was writing in my journal last night when we got home it occurred to me that our walk with Christ is like that. We put our trust in Him, and when our trust is fully in Him, we have the confidence that is needed to follow His lead and do what He asks us to do.
If that is true, then when we know what our call is, but we are hesitant to step out in faith to follow it, is it because we haven’t fully placed our trust in Him?
Jeremiah 17:7 says, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.” When we truly put our trust in Him, and we step out confidently to do what it is that He has called us to do, we are blessed.
Sometimes stepping out to do something new is scary. But when God calls us to do something, it is because He says we are ready, and we have to trust Him. And that trust brings us the confidence to do what we are called to do. Which in turn, brings us blessing, but more importantly, brings God glory.
What has God called you to do that you have been hesitating to do? I encourage you to step out confidently today and trust that you are ready. God says so.
